the British Channel were surveyed, and the most experienced pilots, coastguard officers, and engineers, were examined, that complete and accurate knowledge might be acquired upon all points comprehended within the scope of this commission of inquiry.

They caused a survey to be made of the whole line of coast between Falmouth and the port of Harwich to the north of the Thames, and beyond the limits of the British channel; and nothing that zeal, attention, and scientific skill could accomplish, has been wanting to render this report as valuable as the subject is important.

We cannot afford space for the details into which they enter, and which to those who are curious in such matters, will be found both instructive and interesting; but their recommendation embraces the erection of great works, which, if only completed as they prescribe, will be found fully sufficient to answer all the purposes for which they could be required.

First, it is recommended to construct a harbour of refuge at Dover, enclosed by jetties, with two entrances, one to the east, one hundred and fifty feet, the other to the south, seven hundred feet wide; this harbour to measure five hundred and twenty acres, of which three hundred and seventy are to have a depth of twelve feet at least.

Secondly, it is recommended that a breakwater, of one nautical mile in length, be erected at Seaford, being equally distant from Dover and Portsmouth.

Thirdly, it is recommended that a jetty should be erected, which would cover the south-east Portland roads.

The estimated expense of the proposed works at

Dover, is Seaford, Portland,

£2,500,000 1,250,000 500,000

Being a total of four millions two hundred and fifty thousand pounds -a sum undoubtedly very great, but not greater, we readily admit, than the necessity for such an outlay, which the exposed state of the country renders imperious.

The following are the concluding words in the report of these intelligent commissioners, and they cannot be too earnestly pondered:

"The commission cannot close its re

port, without expressing, in the strongest terms, its unanimous opinion, and its thorough conviction, that it is indispensable to adopt such measures, as may afford the south-east coast of the kingdom a powerful naval protection. Without any exception, the ports into which the tide flows, situated on the coast between Portsmouth and the Thames, are incapable of receiving large steam ships; consequently, now that steam produces such great alteration in naval matters, there is an imperative necessity for supplying, by artificial means, the want of suitable ports in the narrow parts of the British channel. An hydrographical chart will show the situations where, according to our recommendations, ports, enclosed anchorages, well sheltered, will afford a refuge to our merchant shipping. By these means, added to the use of steam at sea, with railroads and telegraphic communications on land, the naval and military force of Great Britain, may, in a few hours, be rendered most efficient on all points of the coast. The recommendations which we have deemed it our duty to submit to your lordships, to be carried out, require a heavy outlay of public money; but when the lives, the property of citizens, and national security are at stake, we do not believe that considerations of money are to be an impediment in the way of realizing results of such vast importance."

Undoubtedly it would be a miserable parsimony, miscalled economy, which could stand in the way of such advantages. England should henceforth be considered as almost continentally connected with the rest of Europe. It is no longer a coast that is to be protected, but a frontier that is to be defended. We should, therefore, if we would be safe, be prepared, not merely at particular points, but at every point, to meet the attacks of a daring and adventurous enemy.

And

for that purpose not only is it indispensable that the works above referred to should be completed, but that a large augmentation should be made to our means of internal defence, and such arrangements adopted, as may render them readily available at any menaced part, in case of invasion.

We do think that with harbours of refuge such as those recommended by the commission, the most nervous patriot might feel himself secure-accompanied, as they should be, by such an increase of force of all arms, but more especially of artillery, as

the new arrangements would require. Upon this part of the subject we strongly recommend Lord Ranelagh's

strictures to the attention of our rulers. He will himself see that in one point his recommendation has been anticipated, and that line-of-battle ships are about being converted into floating batteries, from which, if any necessity for employing them arose, most valuable services might be expected.

One consideration, and of no little importance, he has overlooked. It is this. The harbours on the French coast are almost all tidal harbours, or harbours into or out of which vessels of burden can only pass at high water. The harbours of refuge on the English coast are almost all open harbours, and may be entered at any time of the tide. This, assuredly, confers upon them a vast superiority over the former. They are thus at all times available; while any vessels leaving the French coast, and compelled to put back, whether from stress of weather, the presence of a superior enemy, or any other cause, must abide the fury of the elements, consent to fight at disadvantage, be stranded and burned in the harbours, or wrecked upon the shore.

But while each country is justified, and even called upon to take the most effectual measures for national defence, and that irrespectively of any present hostile aims, and under a persuasion on both sides that the best guarantee for a continuance of peace will be a preparedness for war, we would be very sorry that any interruption was thus given to the growing cordiality, the "entente cordiale," by which old antipathies are giving way to a better understanding between them. We now no longer, at this side of the channel, hear the term "our natural enemies" applied to our Gallic neighbours; and if, on their part, there is something more of a surly soreness than could be desired, when English interests are concerned, that is, we would fain believe, every day becoming less, and should the present government continue in power, will eventually be supplanted by a sentiment not only of amity, but of respect and estimation.

Few of us sufficiently consider how much the peace of Europe is owing to Louis Phillippe and his enlightened

minister, Guizot. If Buonaparte was the great war sovereign, Louis Phillippe is the great peace sovereign of France. If the necessities, as well as the disposition, of the former led him to take an aggressive attitude towards the powers of Europe, and if the energy of his mind and the captivations of his genius enabled him to combine, as one man, in his military enterprises, the factions who acknowledged him as their master; no less have the necessities and the dispositions of the present sovereign led him to take the opposite course, and to restrain the military passion of his people within proper bounds, or give a loose to it where it may be suffered to rage without disturbing the friendly relations in which he is resolved to live with his surrounding neighbours. Under no other sovereign could the "tempest and whirlwind" of revolutionary fury, which flung off the elder branch of the house of Bourbon, have begot "a temperance that has given it smoothness;" and while he himself has been exposed to plots and conspiracies of every kind, by which his life has been repeatedly endangered, the tranquillity of the country has been maintained, and its peaceful relations preserved. Of this blessing we would soon be made painfully conscious, did any accident, or the course of nature, remove him from his throne. We know not where a successor could be found, possessing all the qualities necessary for commanding the respect, and securing the tranquillity of an unsettled and mercurial people.

Nor can we fail to consider it a rare felicity, that in Guizot he has found a minister just such as the exigencies of his country require. It is but seldom that a man of books is so good a man of business; a man of theory, so much a man of practice; a philosopher, so expert in the management of parties, and so versed in the mazy diplomacy of cabinets; and a man of grave, reflecting habits, so ready and so eloquent in stormy debate, and so capable of commanding respect and attention in an assembly so restless, so turbulent, and so impatient as the French Chambers. Added to this, while he is essentially national, he is thoroughly European; and while he desires the glory and the happiness of France with the ardour of a true patriot, he seeks them not at the

expense of provoking the jealousy or endangering the security of other nations. There is a legitimacy in his acts and in his views, which has done more to bring France within the system of European governments, than, considering the eccentricity of its movements, could be hoped for from the efforts of any single man. And if he

and his royal master are only spared to complete what they have so wisely resolved on and so well begun, not only may we calculate upon a continuance of the tranquillity which has given Europe such an unusual respite from the distractions and miseries of war, but such friendly relations will be established and cemented between Great Britain and France, as must tend, more than any other human cause, to secure the blessings of peace for succeeding generations.

To second these enlightened efforts, which are made by the French minister in the midst of difficulties and embarrassments of which it would be difficult to convey to the English reader even a faint idea, there is not, we believe, on the part of our rulers, any honest disposition wanting. While the Duke of Wellington holds an influential seat in the cabinet, wisdom will regulate our foreign councils; and he is far too well acquainted with the limits of the possible and the practicable in France, not to make due allowance for the very peculiar position of a minister, who holds his place by favour of the king, and who has so frequently to arbitrate betweeen the reasonable desires of other governments, and the passionate wishes of a vain-glorious people. The "summum jus" may, in politics as well as in law, be also the "summa injuria ;" and to forego punctilio, and be blind, or indifferent to occurrences, which indicate rather a morbid state of the national temperament, than any settled intention in the government, may sometimes be as wise, as it would be at other times promptly to observe them. We mean not to say that any British interest should be sacrificed for the sake of maintaining our friendly relations with France; but only that such allowances should be made for a minister whose sincerity is manifest, as may enable him to accomplish all the good which he has at heart, and to persevere in eschewing the perilous courses upon

which his country 'might be driven, when wisdom like his was not at the helm to moderate and direct it.

When we consider the combination of parties by whom this great minister is viewed with hatred or with jealousy, we are lost in wonder that he should so long have been able to maintain himself in power. The Jesuits hate him because of his enlightened Protestantism; the legitimists, because of his adhesion to the present regime; the Buonapartists and the war party, because of his determination to preserve the peace of Europe; and the republicans, because of his attachment to constitutional monarchy. How he has been able to maintain himself as minister against such a formidable combination, and in a country where the government as yet rests upon unstable elements, and where a truly constitutional party is yet to be formed, is as astonishing as the fact itself is important. We trust that nothing will be done, on our part, to add to the difficulties of his position, and that a generous confidence in his good intentions will prevent any extreme pressure upon him upon tender points where the national vanity was concerned, as could only result in his removal from administration, and the ascendancy of some faction by whose folly or wickedness all his enlightened labours to preserve the peace of Europe would soon be rendered of none effect.

Only let France and England be truly enlightened as to their respective interests, and persevere in maintaining a cordial amity, and it is scarcely extravagant to say that their union would be a guarantee for the tranquillity of the world. The very facilities of intercommunication which the noble writer, whose brochure has given rise to the present paper, regards as furnishing such facilities for a hostile descent upon our coasts, may be employed for the purpose of promoting or improving peaceful relations, so that no such hostile descent need be apprehended. And to this purpose it would well become government to labour with at least as much earnestness and assiduity, as towards any augmentation of force which might be required by the national necessities.

England has no reason to feel jealous of France, and France has no

reason to feel jealous of England. They are both great nations, and it will be owing to their own criminal folly alone, if they do not both long maintain the rank of first-rate powers in Europe. They can afford, ungrudgingly, to do justice to each other; and those who, in other countries, would cater to the bad passions of the people, and stir up international hostilities, should be regarded by both as the worst of foes.

It is perfectly right that the vulne rable points upon our respective coasts should be adequately protected; but this may be done without any spirit of aggressive enterprise which might give rise to hostile apprehensions. We believe the great works already recommended by the commission of which we have already spoken, 'to be perfectly adequate to the end in view.

Our naval force may be under the mark of the French marine, when we consider the vast extent of our commerce, and our widely-spread colonial empire, and it should be proportionally augmented. Our artillery force is notoriously inadequate to the duties which it is called upon to perform, and a large addition to it is, we believe, in contemplation. These are necessary measures, and we trust that no spirit of mean and pinching parsimony will stand in the way of their speedy complete accomplishment. All this

may be done in such a way as to demonstrate that we love peace, while we are prepared for war; and that preparations which are indispensable for national defence, need never interrupt the good understanding which it is so desirable to maintain between such near neighbours.

THE recent chastisements inflicted by the English and the French on the Algerines, have put an end, it is to be hoped for ever, to those piratical depredations and horrid cruelties, which, for three hundred years, made them the scourge and the terror of Christendom. Possessing a restless spirit, and occupying a situation which placed them, as it were, in the centre of commercial enterprise, they carried on a war of indiscriminate pillage against all who sailed the seas; making their name alike detestable for their incorrigible robberies, and for their inhuman treatment of the captives who fell into their hands. In those days, the boldness of the roving corsair was doubly stimulated by the love of plunder, and the bitterness of religious hatred. To the Moor and the Turk, the Christian was something worse than a heretic or an unbeliever. The term "dog" was his common appellative, to mark the contempt and abomination in which his creed was held by the followers of the Arabian prophet. The barriers of prejudice which then separated the Mohammedan from the

Christian world, were much stronger than at present, when a more frequent intercourse has tended to soften down the inveterate antipathies which ages of ignorance and seclusion had generated. If the European was degraded by the name of " uncircumcised dog," in his turn he regarded the disciple of the Koran with equal horror and aversion. He was stigmatized, not merely as an oppressor and a robber, whose hand was against every man, but as an infidel, a professor of lies and blasphemies, whom it was the bounden duty of every Christian to harass, and extirpate from the face of the earth. With his character, the vilest of heresies and the worst atrocities were associated. About the period to which our narrative refersthe reigns of Charles and James, the last of the Stuarts-the very name of Algerine pirates suggested, and was identified, in the imaginations of Europe, with all that was terrible and barbarous in the conquests of the Saracens, who were then remembered in the West, only as the Huns and Goths of a fiercer race, the burners of libra

ries, the profaners of tombs, the pests of Christendom, and the enemies of mankind.

At various times in the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the insolent aggressions of these freebooters provoked retaliation, and drew down upon them severe retribution. There was scarcely a state in Europe that did not find it necessary to adopt active hostilities, by invading their territory or destroying their principal city. Germans, Venetians, French, English, Spaniards, attacked them in succession, and made various powerful demonstrations to effect their subjugation. In the year 1541, their audacious piracies, under the Dey Hussan Aga, a renegade eunuch, provoked the resentment of the Emperor Charles V. who directed against them one of the most formidable armaments which that age had witnessed. The fleet consisted of one hundred and twenty ships and twenty galleys, having on board thirty thousand chosen troops, with an immense quantity of money, arms, and ammunition, besides great numbers of young noblemen and gentlemen who served as volunteers at their own expense, from motives of religion and glory. Many ladies of birth and character also contributed to increase the splendour of the expedition, together with the wives and daughters of officers and soldiers, who followed with the view of settling in Algeria when its conquest should be achieved. But melancholy was the result—the imperial fleet met with the same disasters as the Spanish armada. A dreadful storm arose when they were before the walls of Algiers, accompanied, as the records of that catastrophe affirm, "with violent shocks of earthquakes, and a universal darkness both by sea and land." The vessels being driven from their anchors, were either split against one another, or dashed in pieces among the adja

cent rocks, in spite of all the united endeavours of pilots and mariners. Above one hundred of them perished in a single night, with all their guns and military stores; so that the army on shore were deprived of all means of subsistence, and exposed to the sabres of the Moors and Arabs, who fell upon them in the confusion of escape, and committed dreadful slaughter. The sea, for miles, was covered with wrecks, and the dead bodies of men and horses. A mere remnant was saved with the emperor, who took advantage of a favourable breeze, and reached Carthagena. This luckless expedition is said to have lost a hundred and twenty ships, above three hundred colonels, with eight thousand soldiers and marines, who perished in the first tempest, besides those that were destroyed by the enemy. As for the number of captives, it was so great that they were sold, by way of insult, in the market of Algiers for an onion per head!*

The Spaniards, whose vicinity exposed them particularly to the devastations of the Algerine freebooters, made repeated attempts to chastise them, in 1570, in 1601, in 1775, and in 1783. The first of these was a daring exploit, executed, with the permission of Philip II. by an adventurer named John Gascon, who undertook to surprise and burn the whole navy of the corsairs in their own bay, in the dead of night. This romantic bravado failed. Gascon was captured in making his escape, carried back to Algiers, and delivered to the Dey, who ordered a high gibbet to be erected, on which the bold invader was hoisted, and hung by the feet that he might die in the most exquisite torture; and to show his contempt for the king his master, he ordered his commission to be fastened to his toes. The attempt in 1601, to destroy the nest of the pirates, was frustrated by contrary